Saturday, 9 February 2013

If you have been reading Valerie Martin's Property which is an optional exam set text in Britain for many 16+ A-level students, you will be familiar with the horrors of slavery, and the problems of voice, representation and point of view in black literature.

I'm always surprised that so many teachers recoil from teaching texts that may be harrowing. After all, the postmodern ennui that pervades so much of contemporary society does far more harm by turning away from our violent heritage and the continuation of hatred, exploitation and abuse across all societies today.

If you have not come across it, I'd also strongly recommend reading Langston Hughes' How to be a Bad Writer(In Ten Easy Lesson)

1. Use all the clichés possible, such as “He had a gleam in
his eye,” or ‘Her teeth were white as pearls.”

2. If you are a Negro, try very hard to write with an eye
dead on the white market – use modern stereotypes of older stereotypes – big
burly Negroes, criminals, low-lifers, and prostitutes.

3. Put in a lot of profanity and as many pages as possible
of near pornography and you will be so modern you pre-date Pompeii
in your lonely crusade toward the bestseller lists. By all means be
misunderstood, unappreciated, and ahead of your time in print and out, then you
can be felt-sorry-for by your own self, if not the public.

4. Never characterize characters. Just name them and then
let them go for themselves. Let all of them talk the same way. If the reader
hasn’t imagination enough to make something out of cardboard cut-outs, shame on
him!

5. Write about China,
Greence, Tibet
or the Argentine pampas — anyplace you’ve never seen and know nothing about.
Never write about anything you know, your home town, or your home folks, or
yourself.

6. Have nothing to say, but use a great many words,
particularly high-sounding words, to say it.

7. If a playwright, put into your script a lot of
hand-waving and spirituals, preferably the ones everybody has heard a thousand
times from Marion Anderson to the Golden Gates.

8. If a poet, rhyme June with moon as often and in as many
ways as possible. Also use thee’s and thou’s and ’tis and o’er , and invert
your sentences all the time. Never say, “The sun rose, bright and shining.” But
rather, “Bright and shining rose the sun.’

9. Pay no attention really to the spelling or grammar or the
neatness of the manuscript. And in writing letters, never sign your name so
anyone can read it. A rapid scrawl will better indicate how important and how
busy you are.

10. Drink as much liquor as possible and always write under
the presence of alcohol. When you can’t afford alcohol yourself, or even if you
can, drink on your friends, fans, and the general public.

If you are white, there are many more things I can advise in
order to be a bad writer, but since this piece is for colored writers, there
are some thing I know a Negro just will not do, not even for writing’s sake, so
there is no use mentioning them.

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If you want o know more about the history of slavery which will be highly relevant for your reading of Valerie Martin's Property I strongly recommend a viewing of the documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman.